A8-3850 Has Ineffective BClk Multiplier

Engineering sample is a lot different. Llano ES chips which were circulated by AMD has an actual upwards unlocked BClk multipler, which could actually increase clock speeds.

The news article covers retail A8-3850, which do not (and are not supposed to) have an upwards unlocked multiplier. Even if the BIOS allows you to set multi above 29x, the chip doesn't actually respond to it, and keeps running at 29x.

So no, the news is entirely true.

Click to expand...

Sorry was not aware that they were locking them ( the highend sku )......especially if I were to read your "article"

"Empty Overclocking" is a term we just made up, to describe unreal overclocking headroom that does not translate into any performance improvements, with AMD's A8-3850 APU. This chip has an upwards unlocked base clock (BClk) multipler. Setting it above the factory default will increase clock speed (at least the clock speed that's reported to you), but that "increased" clock speed will not translate to any performance improvements at all."

I'm confused now.

You just told me that they do not nor are they supposed to have an upwards multiplier......

But the article states it does........

Either way the ball bounces here what is stated is not entirely true still................

Sorry was not aware that they were locking them ( the highend sku )......especially if I were to read your "article"

"Empty Overclocking" is a term we just made up, to describe unreal overclocking headroom that does not translate into any performance improvements, with AMD's A8-3850 APU. This chip has an upwards unlocked base clock (BClk) multipler. Setting it above the factory default will increase clock speed (at least the clock speed that's reported to you), but that "increased" clock speed will not translate to any performance improvements at all."

I'm confused now.

You just told me that they do not nor are they supposed to have an upwards multiplier......

But the article states it does........

Either way the ball bounces here what is stated is not entirely true still................

Click to expand...

I rephrased the article. The A8-3850 does not have an unlocked multiplier, a BIOS bug on some boards lets you "set" the multiplier above 29, and even misreports the "increased" speed but that doesn't actually set anything on the chip.

I rephrased the article. The A8-3850 does not have an unlocked multiplier, a BIOS bug on some boards lets you "set" the multiplier above 29, and even misreports the "increased" speed but that doesn't actually set anything on the chip.

Click to expand...

Cool, deal.

I will still see if we can get this little registry tweak sorted in the meantime per chance they do unlock one of these little guys

This whole thing is because the CPU has two 'different Max clock settings':
- P0 limit (2.9 GHz for example on A8-3850) which is the max clock for a given SKU
- MaxPllClock (3.6 GHz on A8-3850) - a reference clock from which the other clocks are derived from
Now, if you set a clock above the pre-set P0 limit the CPU doesn't seem to accept it (but reports it as taken, which must be a bug).
HWiNFO32/64 is not fooled by this 'virtual' clock in such case and reports correct speed: